Hyland Thornhill’s visions of home-coming were pleasant in spite of the above-detailed contretemps. It would be no end jolly to see the old man again—he and his father had always been more like chums than anything else, and the confidence between them was perfect. And little Edala—she was wrong-headed on certain points, but still—what times they would have. And the strange visitor? He wondered what she would be like. Well, the more the merrier—anyway, he was going to have a ripping time of it now he had broken loose at last. He had put up a surprise visit on them, and it would all be great fun.
But between himself and Sipazi there lay—Ndabakosi’s kraal.
The latter, for a moment had been unwontedly lively; then it was as dead. When Hyland Thornhill rode up to it, two ringed men stood watching his approach with listless curiosity.
“Saku bona ’madoda!” he cried. “And the chief—how is he?”
They returned his greeting.
The chief was asleep, they said. In fact he was getting old, and was not very well.
“Au! That is bad news,” returned Hyland. “But—we are old friends. I would like to look upon his face once more. Tell him Ugwala is here,” giving his native nickname.
The two, whose faces were strange to him, looked at each other. Then one went in the direction of the chief’s hut, while the other went in another direction. The while Hyland had not dismounted. Presently the first returned.
The chief was awake, he said, and would see Ugwala presently. Meanwhile would he not dismount?
But a very strange kind of instinct had come over Hyland Thornhill, warning him to do nothing of the kind. It happened that as he sat in the saddle waiting, he had happened to see, by a side glance, the hut which the other man had entered. The doorway, for one brief moment, had been crowded with faces, whose expression there was no mistaking. His glance had also caught the gleam of assegais. All the rumours he had heard on the way down and, especially when he had got off the train at Telani, where in fact he had been seriously warned against taking this journey all alone—came back to him. He remembered, too, that many of the more reliable chiefs were reported to be disaffected.